Rainbow Lake and Peaks Trailhead — Attraction in Frisco

This is a sweet and easy, 3 mile out-and-back walk through the woods to a small lake. It's very popular and dog friendly. You could easily pass a couple of dozen folks and a number of off leash dogs in each direction. (All the dogs we encountered were well behaved and happy.) The footing is a bit tricky in places with some wet spots (June) but we still observed a few elderly people managing with walking sticks. Finding the trailhead can be a little tricky, however. It's kind of hidden in a Frisco residential area west of Highway 9. In an odd bit of misdirection, there is Rainbow Lake sign just as you approach town and the southern most of the two roundabouts from the south. Access is actually from the next or northernmost roundabout. Clever, those CDOT...

I did this on a Thursday morning, arrived to the Rainbow Lake Trailhead parking lot around 8:15AM and I was one of two cars there. I didn't do the rainbow lake hike, but rather did Peak 1 and Mt Royal. The hike up was quite steadily uphill the whole way, and towards the top, there were super windy areas as well as patches of snow and mud. Going down those snow patches was a bit sketchy for some parts as I had normal hiking shoes, nothing special. It took me about 2 hours 10 mins to reach the summit, and the view up there was pretty great. There's the Frisco / Dillon view as well as the mountains in the back. It's also quite windy up there, but at least...

Trail was moderate.. started off as easy, then went more steep and rocky. Most of walk was tree shaded so that was nice. The lake is not big, but any body of water in Colorado is nice. Had to share path with bicyclers since this trail connects with a whole system in the area. One site I saw said it was a loop, but looked like an out and back to me. We only went till trail 45 ended in the other side if the lake and turned back. Estimated about 2 miles, so was not a long hike. We started at Zach's...